Moving into my apartment and meeting my colleagues

As soon as I landed in Changi from India, I headed to Heritage View Towers, my humble abode for at least the next 6 months. (details are available in a previous post) I pulled my first roommate out of bed to let me in Ben is a Bain consultant from Munich and a very nice guy. He showed me to my room and the first thing I notice was my bed. It is 3 feet wide, and I’m about 3 feet wide, so there’s very little room to roll around… (never mind a second person in there…) Our apartment is quite bare, other than nice leather couches, a fairly nice wooden dinner table, and a TV. We have no cutlery, no plates, no pans, nothing! Later that day, my second roommate Philip arrived. I will give him the exact same description: Bain consultant from Munich and a very nice guy. We had a few drinks and headed to Velvet Underground, a popular nightclub, around midnight. There were about 30-40 other INSEAD students there and everyone had a blast. I headed home around 4am.

The three roommates went to “Cold Storage” (strange name for a grocery chain) the next day to stock up our house with the basics: beer, fruits, wine, butter, beer, a bottle opener, salt and pepper, beer etc. The process was quite complicated and painful because we had diverging opinions about how much we would cook at home. The Germans thought that we would never cook anything more than a cereal bowl at home, whereas I was hoping to entertain a few guests once in a while. After a bit of compromising, we paid and hailed a cab. I wanted to return the cart close to the door and discovered the hard way that they are made of aluminium, not steel. I gave it a good push to secure it in another cart lying about it. I was successful but pushed much too hard and both carts landed in a small bush, which was destroyed. Fearing canning, I attempted to save the poor tree but it kept getting worst. I finally rescued the cart and by that time, a crowd had formed to watch the scuffle. Philip and I laughed all the way to IKEA to pick up another few items. That night, we went for a fairly fancy seafood dinner at Clarke Quay and went out to Attica, another nightclub. We purchased a table with a complementary bottle of Grey Goose. After two months in Tanzania, my ripe-off radar went off when I noticed that the bottle was not sealed. I pointed it out to the waiter and he gave me a smile, turned around and brought a tightly sealed bottle. I wonder how many people end up drinking the poison they distil in the basement. I have been “allergic” to vodka for many years now. Surprisingly, I was poured a vodka tonic and enjoyed it very much. I later had a vodka redbull, which was also quite nice. With another welcome BBQ, I was finally ready to start the serious (!) stuff at INSEAD.